Thou Shalt Not Stream (The Competition)

Last week, Riot Games declared its paid players could not stream everything from DOTA 2 to...Fat Princess? It eventually backed down, and I called up OnGamers senior eSports editor Rod Breslau to learn more.

Can someone explain why people are upset with Rod Breslau (Slasher) in the comments?

Also, I don't really find anything reasonable about telling players what they can or can't stream, even if they're paid by Riot. They already sacrifice so much of their lives to Riot's game, why not give them the right to stream whatever they want?

Can someone explain why people are upset with Rod Breslau (Slasher) in the comments?

Also, I don't really find anything reasonable about telling players what they can or can't stream, even if they're paid by Riot. They already sacrifice so much of their lives to Riot's game, why not give them the right to stream whatever they want?

It was a show he used to host on MLG called Fuck Slasher. Just affectionate homage!

Can someone explain why people are upset with Rod Breslau (Slasher) in the comments?

Also, I don't really find anything reasonable about telling players what they can or can't stream, even if they're paid by Riot. They already sacrifice so much of their lives to Riot's game, why not give them the right to stream whatever they want?

It was a show he used to host on MLG called Fuck Slasher. Just affectionate homage!

Can someone explain why people are upset with Rod Breslau (Slasher) in the comments?

'Fuck Slasher' is an inside joke started by I believe DJ Wheat (a SC2/eSports caster). It even was a name of a show Rob had on MLG. So no one is really upset with Slasher, it's more of a term of endearment now.

first of all, fuck slasher was stolen from haunts who now works for capcom. people in the fighting game community started saying fuck slasher unironically because he represents e-sports. now apparently it's 'affectionate'.

All of this Riot drama feels like the kind of stuff that happens when professional sports leagues fall apart and absorb each other. It'll be interesting to see what the moba landscape looks like in ten years.

Yeah, this was pretty gross but I mean...they are paid employees pretty much so if they don't want their employees playing a game from a competitor on a stream then I don't inherently have a huge problem with this. They aren't say they can't play the games but that they can't stream them. I would be thankful that I didn't have to have a real job and could play video games all the time and not complain about streaming the competition's games.

Can someone explain why people are upset with Rod Breslau (Slasher) in the comments?

Also, I don't really find anything reasonable about telling players what they can or can't stream, even if they're paid by Riot. They already sacrifice so much of their lives to Riot's game, why not give them the right to stream whatever they want?

A large part of it was companies (blizzard in particular) were approaching high profile league of legends streamers and giving them beta / free access to their product, the streamers would then play these whilst waiting for their next league match as people tuned in to watch league of legends play.

These pro players who play in Riot's LCS are promoted by riot and their streams are endorsed and they earn a wage through their professional level play so Riot wasn't too fond of these representatives of their product being coerced into shilling for the competition and they wrote up a draconian ban on the playing of these games into the player's contracts.

A lot of backlash ensued (including apparently from inside the riot offices by employees who described this behavior as being 'against the core tenets of Riot') and so Riot backed down, a mix of backlash and the riot employees asking who the hell had OK'd this part of the contract leading to it.

One of the higher ups in Riot then said something along the lines of 'we are treading new ground and mistakes will be made, thank you to the fans for keeping us honest' but it was also mentioned that in another sport you wouldn't see it's representatives advertising for a competitor and that was what they were looking to curb here. I can see both sides of the argument being valid really and keep in mind they were still allowed to play these games, they just couldn't stream themselves playing them as they were representatives of Riot.

Fascinating! Really interesting to see a company that essentially could strong arm their industry backing down and walking the delicate line between player satisfaction and competition within the same game space.

one of my favorite streamers/youtubers brought up a good point that blizzard poses a high potential risk from other blizzard products here you can see that when d3 was released it really hurt league and took directly marketshare from them and took them quite awhile to regain their market share and had d3 not been as shit it could have had a more long term and permanent affect to marketshare.

A slight point of history: There was a whole fracas about the trademark on the term "DOTA" and "Defense of the Ancients" where Riot Games, the makers and maintainers, tried to lock up the TM on this stuff (URLs, sites etc). Blizzard stepped in and due the Warcraft 3 TOS, "DOTA" and "Defense of the Ancients" are actually Blizzard's to control. So Riot lost control and a bunch of things to Blizzard and Blizzard went on to make a deal with Valve on using the name for Dota 2.

So yeah, so while Riot may have an archenemy with Valve, Riot definitely has a bone to pick with Blizzard.

Can someone explain why people are upset with Rod Breslau (Slasher) in the comments?

Also, I don't really find anything reasonable about telling players what they can or can't stream, even if they're paid by Riot. They already sacrifice so much of their lives to Riot's game, why not give them the right to stream whatever they want?

A large part of it was companies (blizzard in particular) were approaching high profile league of legends streamers and giving them beta / free access to their product, the streamers would then play these whilst waiting for their next league match as people tuned in to watch league of legends play.

These pro players who play in Riot's LCS are promoted by riot and their streams are endorsed and they earn a wage through their professional level play so Riot wasn't too fond of these representatives of their product being coerced into shilling for the competition and they wrote up a draconian ban on the playing of these games into the player's contracts.

A lot of backlash ensued (including apparently from inside the riot offices by employees who described this behavior as being 'against the core tenets of Riot') and so Riot backed down, a mix of backlash and the riot employees asking who the hell had OK'd this part of the contract leading to it.

One of the higher ups in Riot then said something along the lines of 'we are treading new ground and mistakes will be made, thank you to the fans for keeping us honest' but it was also mentioned that in another sport you wouldn't see it's representatives advertising for a competitor and that was what they were looking to curb here. I can see both sides of the argument being valid really and keep in mind they were still allowed to play these games, they just couldn't stream themselves playing them as they were representatives of Riot.

Thanks for the story, 10/10, would read again.

I don't see anything wrong with Riot blocking other MOBAs, but you have to draw the line.

I am interested in Patrick's PoV about this as someone who doesn't follow League or eSports in general. It's really different than what I saw on Reddit and such where there was just non-stop complaint from League fans and bashing from other games' fans. Real interested to hear what the other guys think of this and I hope they discuss this, at least for a few minutes, on the next Bombcast.

I definitely understand Riot's point of view and generally agree with it. However, these are people's personal streams, and it seems like they are overstepping their boundaries. But it also makes sense, since they are paying these people's salaries and for a team house.

Was never a fan of the idea that companies can restrict you from activities that take place outside of work. If it's not interfering you from what you're paid to do, it seems like nothing but excessive to prevent players from streaming other games.

I can understand it if they're taking a paycheck from competitors that it might cause some problems, but that doesn't seem to be the case from what Riot was targeting.

Was never a fan of the idea that companies can restrict you from activities that take place outside of work. If it's not interfering you from what you're paid to do, it sees like nothing but excessive to prevent players from streaming other games.

I can understand it if they're taking a paycheck from competitors that it might cause some problems, but that doesn't seem to be the case from what Riot was targeting.

I think it was, I say this because of how unfocused the banned list of games were, it's almost as if they created the list to make it seem less apparent they were targeting Blizzard.

What other companies were doing to Riot seemed like, for example, someone slipping in a superbowl TV advertisement, while not having to pay for it. They use the immense popularity of the sport to advertise their product, all the while screwing over the NFL by not coughing up for the right.

Of course they'd try to clamp down on that shit, I would. You can feel as outraged as you like, but what these companies are trying to do is total horseshit.

Nobody is stopping these players from streaming themselves playing other games on their own time, but from what I understand, they're doing this while repping RIOT. It's like Lionel Messi (who is massively, MASSIVELY sponsored by Pepsi) going over to the bench at half time and, in full view of the cameras, chugs down a can of Coke.

Nobody is saying he can't drink coke in private, but when he's in public, you bet your ass he's drinking Pepsi.

A slight point of history: There was a whole fracas about the trademark on the term "DOTA" and "Defense of the Ancients" where Riot Games, the makers and maintainers, tried to lock up the TM on this stuff (URLs, sites etc). Blizzard stepped in and due the Warcraft 3 TOS, "DOTA" and "Defense of the Ancients" are actually Blizzard's to control. So Riot lost control and a bunch of things to Blizzard and Blizzard went on to make a deal with Valve on using the name for Dota 2.

So yeah, so while Riot may have an archenemy with Valve, Riot definitely has a bone to pick with Blizzard.

This is all wrong. I actually read the the TM filings surrounding DOTA.

The original DOTA devs filed for the TM to DOTA (under the company DOTA-Allstars) a few months after Valve but before the acceptance of Valves TM claim or the official announcement of DOTA2. Blizzard, unaware of the filing by Valve, acquired the(useless) rights from DOTA-Allstars. Blizzard finds out their claim to DOTA is rejected and the well reported on lawyering goes down with Blizz and Valve. Riot was not directly involved in any legal way.